California voters split on online tax

“At this point, Californians are evenly divided on whether online purchases should be taxed. This could be one of the most expensive campaigns in California history, and neither side starts with a clear advantage,” Dan Schnur, director of the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll, said in a statement.

Amazon refuses to collect the tax and is leading the campaign to overturn it. Conventional retailers argue that failing to tax online purchases gives an unfair advantage to online retailers and exacerbates California's budget woes.

The poll found young and nonwhite voters are more likely to oppose the tax. Opposition was also correlated with online shopping habits: 61 percent of those polled who do most of their shopping online oppose the tax.

The poll was conducted July 6 to 17 and has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.